Marc Haine explains how CEOs keep long-time employees out of gratitude even when they can't do the job anymore, forcing leaders to work around them. Amish Shah built a successful business but grew to resent it because his team had outgrown their capabilities and he was trapped compensating for their weak performance.
One of the biggest ones is what I call the loyalty liability. It might sound a bit cheesy but it's true. It's that most CEOs and founders in particular are very loyal to people. That's why they built great teams and they're not the monsters that we see on TV. But that becomes a liability because when they've had someone with them for a decade who is a wonderful human being but no longer can be a high performer in their job, if they hold on to those people, they end up slowing the business down and putting more pressure on themselves. Basically, they end up with a bunch of part-time jobs backfilling for these weak people. And interesting, we go into organizations, we normally have to make a lot of people adjustments or moves to different roles or different structures because the team isn't strong enough to do it. Like one of our case studies is Amish Shah from down in the U.S. And he had an amazing— he built a spectacular business, a big business. But when I started working with him, he hated his business. But he had basically outgrown a whole bunch of his team. But he was stuck in that loyalty liability. It happens all the time. So, that is one of the big pitfalls that it's so easy to slip into because you want to be good to people and you appreciate people that have helped you.
Yeah. Well, you know, part of that loyalty component is, you know, they helped me get to where I am today. Yeah. But they might not be for tomorrow.
